SADC Defers Zimbabwe Crisis Talks
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Monday deferred a crisis meeting on the political instability in Zimbabwe to 27 October, after a key opposition leader failed to attend scheduled talks in Swaziland. SADC, which is brokering a power-sharing deal between the government and the opposition in Zimbabwe, had called a meeting of a special organ of the regional body dealing with politics, defence and security to discuss a deadlock in the implementation of the Kenya-style agreement signed by the two sides last month.
But main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai failed to travel to Swaziland for the Monday meeting, saying the government had refused to renew his passport.
He said the authorities gave him a temporal travel document Sunday, but this was only valid for Swaziland, yet he had to pass through South Africa, where the document was invalid, on his way to the SADC meeting.
Tsvangirai’s passport expired sometime last year, but the government has reportedly refused to renew it, to restrict his movements abroad.
The government and opposition have reached a deadlock in the allocation of ministerial posts in a proposed government of national unity, and appealed to SADC to intervene.
The opposition has accused the government of grabbing all important ministries, including defence, finance, home affairs, justice and information, and leaving it with peripheral cabinet portfolios.
The Swaziland meeting, presided over by the leaders of Angola, Mozambique and Swaziland representing SADC, was supposed to try and break the impasse.
But after Tsvangirai’s failure to attend, SADC deferred the meeting to next week Monday in Mozambique.
SADC, which appointed former South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate in Zimbabwe’s long running political crisis on its behalf, sees power-shaing between the government and the opposition as the only viable way of ending the leadership squabbles in the country.
(Source)
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